‘Scaled back’ Panthers win two events at Ballard

Creston's Trevor Luther (left) takes the baton from Alex Tamerius during the 4x100 relay Tuesday at
the Ballard Classic Relays in Huxley. The unit, also involving Chris Foster and Seth Maitlen, ran 48.68
and did not score. Luther won the discus throw with a toss of 125 feet.

By LARRY PETERSON
CNA sports writer • lpeterson@crestonnews.com

HUXLEY — Despite not having key team members with a full load of events with the Drake Relays looming later this week, the Creston boys track team was able to win two events at the Ballard Classic Relays Tuesday night.

The four Drake Relays competitiors concentrated mostly on individual events Monday, and were not asked to run more than two races. Plus, dual sport athletes Maxx Walters and Evan Nielsen were not present because of a golf meet — also hosted by Ballard.

They each placed in individual races, as well, led by Phipps taking second in the 3,200 meters in 9:55.90.Taking third were Wolfe in the 200, McDermott in the 1,600 and Briley in the 400.

The other victory for the night was by Trevor Luther, gaining his first gold medal in the discus throw at 125 feet.

As a team, Creston trailed the field of seven other teams in Class A with 49 points. Dallas Center-Grimes topped the Class A division with 105 points.

“We wanted to be competitive, but the way we lined up team-wise, it was not set up to get a lot of points,” Creston coach Pat Schlapia said. “We wanted to scale things back a bit and have those guys fresh.”

Briley, McDermott, Phipps and Wolfe are running the 4x800 at Drake Saturday morning, and Wolfe is in the boys 800 meters Friday afternoon.

For the most part, those four got some “speed work” in, Schlapia said, except for Phipps, who dipped under 10 minutes for the first time this season in just his second 3,200 race. Peter Smith of North Polk ran 9:47.50 in first place. Phipps was second in 9:55.90 and Luke Kohut-Jackson of Ballard was third at 10:02.93.

“It was those three running at the front pretty much the whole race,” Schlapia said. “Brandon opened up with a 4:55 in his first 1,600 and had a five-minute second mile. That’s a good race for him.”

Briley ran a season-best 52.81 in the 400 meters and led off the winning 4x400 realay with a 52.57 split.

“Bryce was in a very competitive open 400 field at this meet,” Schlapia said. “The first-place guy set a meet record and second place was only .06 ahead of Bryce. Those were quality guys he was matched up with.”

Likewise, McDermott had a season-best time of 4:46.48 in taking third in the 1,600. His previous best was 4:49.

“Two guys ran under 4:40, so Cooper was also up against some pretty stout competition tonight,” Schlapia said.

Wolfe took third in an extremely tight finish in the 200 meters. Tyrell Erb of Carlisle won in 22.83, Nevada’s Chase Dobson was second in 23.01 and Wofe took third at 23.03. The seventh-place runner ran 23.49.

“You look at places two through seven, they were all within a half second of each other,” Schlapia said. “That was Jay’s best 200 time of the season. He and Bryce got in some good speed work tonight.”

Wolfe got the baton in third place in the 4x400 after Phipps kept the lead pack within range. Around the curve on his first 200 meters, Wolfe overtook the anchor runners from Ballard and North Polk and held on to win by a little more than a half-second with a split of 51.74.

“Jay made his move coming off that first curve, and it would take a pretty fast kid to overtake him if he has the lead,” Schlapia said. “All four of those guys were fresh going in after doing just one race.”

A young freshman and sophomore group of runners in the 4x800 scored for the Panthers. Brody Frain, Tyler Peters, Chris Foster and Nick Walsh ran 9:55.97 in sixth place. Walsh and Frain ran splits of 2:20 and 2:23, respectively, and Frain followed with a 2:20 time in the open 800.

Walsh ran a personal best time of 1:05.64 in the 400 meter hurdles.

Seth Maitlen placed fifth for the Panthers in the shot put at 38-11 1/2. In the two throwing events, freshman Cody Tanner had PRs of 35-0 in the shot put and 107-10 in the discus.

The Panther 4x200 relay team had to run on its own after the scheduled event because of a mixup at the starting line. Gilbert was disqualified for having its No. 1 runner in Creston’s lane at the starting block. Creston did not run during the Class A heat because of the confusion.

The unit of Alex Tamerius, Trevor Luther, Chris Foster and Seth Maitlen would have placed sixth with its time of 1:44.83, but was disqualified for an exchange violation.

The Carlisle meet scheduled next Tuesday was cancelled because of construction at the school site there, so Saydel scheduled a meet that Creston is traveling to, followed by the Red Oak meet on May 2.